Great Smog of London

The Great Smog of London was a severe air-pollution event that effected the British capital of London from 5 to 9 December 1952, killing 10,000 people and creating 200,000 medical conditions. A period of cold weather, combined with an anti-cyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants (mostly arising from the use of coal) to form a thick layer of smog over the city.

Meteorologists attributed the great smog's pollution to the over-mining of coal by the Conservative Party administration of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who insisted that the country keep burning coal irresponsibly during the cold winter of 1952 to give the illusion of a solid economy. The meteorologists' report was ignored by the senile Prime Minister Churchill, and the two men who discovered the oncoming smog approached the Leader of the Opposition, Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, with this information in an attempt to sabotage Churchill, whose inaction ahead of the smog and misrule of the country angered them.

As the smog progressed, Churchill insisted that it was just fog, and that it would lift. However, the smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severe than previous smog events ("pea-soupers"). The smog's effect on the human respiratory tract killed 4,000 people during the three days of the smog, while 6,000 died in the following months. On the morning of the third day of the Great Smog, the great coal-burning electricity stations in Battersea and Fulham attempted to reduce their emissions of poisonous sulphur dioxide from their chimneys, but they failed to make any significant change fo the air quality. Churchill's inaction and his insistence that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh's hobby of flying was more important than the smog led to his inter-party rival, the Marquess of Salisbury, informing Philip's uncle Louis Mountbatten of this. Mountbatten and Queen Elizabeth II's own private secretary Alan Lascelles advised her to sack Churchill and appoint a new, younger Prime Minister such as Anthony Eden. Attlee's allies in the meteorology section also advised him to spur on a "vote of no-confidence" in Parliament, but he delayed this until 8 December, when he finally began to instruct the party whips to materialize such a vote. However, the death of Churchill's secretary Venetia Scott in a smog-related accident led to Churchill taking action. While visiting the hospital where Scott's body was kept, Churchill called the press so that he could make a statement, and he pledged to provide more money for hospital staff and equipment, as well as to commission an enquiry into the cause of the smog. The News Chronicle ran an article with the title "A True Leader in a Crisis", and, as the fog lifted, Churchill regained his popularity. Queen Elizabeth, who summoned him to a meeting on the morning of 9 December 1952 with the purpose of firing him, changed her mind as a result of the papers, and instead asked him whom he wanted to be seated next to during a state dinner the next week, changing the purpose of the meeting at the last minute.

Nevertheless, the Great Smog was the worst air-pollution event in British history. London had suffered since the 13th century from poor air quality, which worsened in the 1600s, but the three-day Great Smog was the most significant incident in terms of its effect on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. In 1956, the Clean Air Act introduced "smoke control areas" in some towns and cities in which only smokeless fuels could be burned, and it reduced the amount of smoke pollution and sulphur dioxide from household fires.